The Laughing Man
by JACK NAIPER
Summary: Summary inside!


**The Laughing Man**

I own nothing!

We all know what happened at the end of the killing joke. Batman offered a literal hand out to rehabilitate the joker when the chance was at its best, after he had failed to drive Gordon mad and lived through his origin inside his own mind, for the smallest of instances when whatever was left of his humanity was at its strongest, it looked like he would accept. He turned it down with seemingly true remorse, telling batman "Im sorry but its to late for that, far to late"

But what if about a week later he escaped Arkham once more, but not to do what he normally did, what if he had been plagued by nightmares of his past that just wouldn't go away, what if he needed to go to the Gotham cemetery and see if it was all true or not, to see if his supposed wife was really there, in the ground, what if Batman followed him and found the Joker when he was at his most vulnerable and offered that hand again, would the joker take it? And if so, what would become of him?

Gotham city had many places where almost anyone could walk by without being seen or thought of by anyone, especially a night. When night came over this often already dark city, one was left to wonder, childish as it may be, if the sun ever come up again. Why would it want to on a city like this, a city filled with some of the oddest people one could imagine. Not the least of witch was a living scarecrow, a man obsessed with riddles (and apparently green spandex), a women who doubled as a living greenhouse, a former district attorney with 2 faces, and last but most certainly not least, a man who supposedly dressed up like a bat and went around getting into large scale conflicts with the other odd people of this godforsaken city. However walking through one of the dark ally ways of this city was a man who more or less topped them all. He was a relatively tall (between 5,10 and 6 feet even in height) rather thin man with a somewhat lanky build to him (although, no where _near_ as bad as the scarecrow) and always wore a fine tailored purple suit. He had skin as pale as the moon and relatively thick green hair that was almost always slicked back or falling in his face. But by far his most memorable feature (besides his rather impressive body count and almost indecipherable psychosis) was his smile. A smile the devil himself would have a hard time matching. In fact it was almost impossible to see him without the smile on his face, tonight however was one of the rare times the smile was no where on him at all, in fact he was in a rather confused state of mind (more so then usual anyway) about everything. All he knew was that he needed to prove something to himself, he _**needed**_ to find out the truth! The truth supposedly lay in the Gotham cemetery, so that was where he was going. Little did he know this night would change the course of his destiny in radical ways.

He made his way up to the rusty gate that looked about as dead as the inhabitants of the place. He didn't feel like trying to clime it and blowing it up would attract FAR to much attention (he only just lost the police a few blocks back) so he paced back and forth trying to think of a solution.

"Damn, if only Croc was here, he eats things like this for lunch! Well this and a nice fat, juicy arkham guard for dessert if hes fast enough" he thought to himself. Having run out of ideas and most of his patience tonight, he tried the simplest thing he could think of...he just pushed the gate open. "Wow, this city is stupid. What if one day, all these nice dead people decided to come back to life? It would be beyond horrible, it would be catastrophic! How in the world would Gotham accommodate them all? There aren't nearly enough free apartments to house all the undead people! This city needs to have a plan for stuff like this! It would be worse then the Mexicans. I am NOT giving up my room in arkham for one of Harvey s half brothers, no way! My room overlooks the pool for god sake! I have a balcony and everything." he said out loud. But back to business. He continued looking for what seemed like hours, until he finally came upon what he thought could not and did not exist. There right in front of him was the gravestone that proved everything, seemingly untouched by the hands of time. It read

"Here lies Jeannie Kerr, loving wife and mother"

His mouth hung open in true shock, and time itself seemed to stop. All of a sudden bits and pieces of his old life came rushing back to him and he could do nothing about it. A single tear rolled down his cheek as he contemplated all of this.

"The mother she never got to be, the child _**we**_ never got to have" he said bitterly to himself. He knew now that this was the truth about who he used to be, among all the other possible scenarios. The nightmares were telling the truth. A few more tears slid down his cheeks as he let it all soak in. What would he do now?

"It doesn't have to be this way" a dark gravely voice said from behind him.

He very quickly spun around to see the imposing form of the dark knight himself standing close to him, inspecting the grave. He was a large man both in height and bulk, he stood several inches taller then the joker at 6,2 and was at least 40 pounds heavier, all of witch was muscle. "My offer still stands, let me **help** you! The sight in front of me proves that it isn't to late for you to be something better, you haven't lost all of your humanity, you just need a reason"

The joker contemplated the Batman's words once more and now found he may actually want this. Could it all really be so simple? Did he really not have to be alone in this world any more? True he always said he and the dark knight always had a deep connection but he never felt they truly ever _connected, _he always knew batman and he were similar but never thought the bat would recognize that and do something about it. "Holy crap! 2 miracle's in 1 day. When do I get to blow out the candles and open my presents! I always wanted my very own bat-mobile!" the joker thought to himself.

He looked at batman and said "What makes you think it will be any different if you try and help? What makes you so sure that this is what would be best for me, that's what is the right thing to do? Why not just put me back in Arkham!" he all but yelled. Batman just looked at him, smirked and said "Because its what she would want for you, she would want the man she loved to be happy." The joker realized he needed no further prompting, he stood up (having to look up a bit, to look batman in the eye) smiled a HUGE grin and said "OH! This is going to be sooooo much fun bats! By the end of this I am certain we will be the best of friends." The dark knight faced palmed (yes imagine that!) and thought "This is going to be a **very** long experience"

The joker however didn't take and notice to this and was busy jumping up an down with joy! It was like that cable guy said in that one movie, "There's no end to the possibility's!" Once he collected himself he looked at batman and said, "Well if we are going to give this a shot, then you might as well stop calling me joker and call me by my real name." The dark knight was speechless but managed to ask the all important question, "What is your name?"

"Joseph" the joker said, Joseph Kerr.


End file.
